I liked the idea mentioned on Twitter of adding categories or something to the modloader like was mentioned on Twitter. Honestly, it shouldn't be that hard to add. Whatever ends up happening I'm down with it though.

I'm currently doing a poll on Twitter to see what people think about the possible integration of all DC level mods in one DLL. Doing so will significantly reduce the clutter in the Mod Manager, and there'll be even more flexibility to enabling/disabling things in an INI file.

On the other hand, individual level updates will grow in size because the main mod DLL will have to be updated instead of the smaller level DLLs. I expect an average main DLL mod update to be around ~20MB, while currently an individual mod update is 2-3MB. Some people may also not like the idea of having to edit an INI file manually to disable a level/Adventure Field as opposed to simply turning it off in the Mod Manager.

I was thinking just do both and have one integrated mod and the several DLLs we have now, but that would just mean more work since you would need to update both the integrated mod and the individual mods. Personally, I'd go for the integrated DLL since I don't ever plan to turn anything off unless it's the DLC mods.

Also, how would one go about uninstalling BetterSADX and switching to your Dreamcast Conversion installer?

I was thinking just do both and have one integrated mod and the several DLLs we have now, but that would just mean more work since you would need to update both the integrated mod and the individual mods.

Yeah, maintaining both versions at the same time would be a pain. I think I'll keep the old setup for about a month after the release of the integrated mod, and then redirect the old individual mods to a permanent last update on GitHub with a message telling the player to get the integrated version.

Chris Highwind, on 27 January 2018 - 04:15 PM, said:

Also, how would one go about uninstalling BetterSADX and switching to your Dreamcast Conversion installer?

It should just work if you install it over BetterSADX. Depending on which mods you install, it may also remove some incompatible mods included with BetterSADX (e.g. it will remove the XInput prompts if you install HD GUI 2). When I finish work on the integrated mod, I'll update the installer to make it clean up the old mod structure and install the integrated mod. I'm also considering a backup feature.

The majority of my mods have been integrated into a single "Dreamcast Conversion" mod. You can still disable individual levels/features through the Mod Manager's new config editor. Note that Sound Overhaul 2, HD GUI 2 and Dreamcast-related mods made by other people (Dreamcast Characters, Lantern Engine etc.) will remain separate mods.

Dreamcast Conversion and HD GUI 2 now make use of the Mod Loader's new functionality to take priority over other mods when loading textures. This means no more mod order issues, and you can put the mods in any order! Note that even with the order no longer being a problem there are still incompatible mods - for example, the old Beta Windy Valley mod will still break if it's enabled together with DC Conversion's Windy Valley. To use such mods, disable the Dreamcast level in the mod config editor.

This was done earlier this month, but I pretty much fixed Sky Chase, which should be completely playable at any resolution now with proper scaling of the reticle etc.

Lots of transparency fixes, including the original fountain in Speed Highway Act 3 and E101R special effects.

There have been various cool contributions to HD GUI 2 by several people, for example check out Sonikko's recreated options screen that I animated in code to add a zoom effect for the arrows.

The DLC mods now show a warning when two or more are loaded at the same time. There's also a toggle to enable a "vanilla SADX mode", which will make the DLC content work with non-Dreamcast levels. You can access the options for the DLCs through the Mod Manager's config editor.

You can get the latest update by using the installer or by downloading the manual install package linked in the ModDB news article. The post has a list of mods you need to delete before installing the update.
If you run into any issues, feel free to post here, on the GitHub issue tracker, or ask me on Twitter.